Shamanism, the supposed individual control of the supernatural through
a personally acquired power of communication with the spirit world,
rests upon much the same basis in California as elsewhere in North
America. In general among uncivilized tribes the simpler the stage of
culture the more important the shaman. It is as if he constituted an
element that remained nearly constant in quantity of effect, as it is
fundamentally unvarying in form, through all successive periods of
civilization to the highest; but that as increase in degree of
civilization brought with it ever more and more new elements, religious
and otherwise, and these unfolded in ever expanding complexity, he
became, relatively to the total mass of thought and action of a people,
less and less important. Certainly the difference is marked between the
Eskimo, whose religion consists of little else than shamanism, and the
much more highly organized Indians of the North Pacific Coast, where
shamanism is but one of several and by no means the most important
religious factor, even though it may be the most deep seated. The same
contrast is found between the rude simple-minded Indians of California
as compared with those of the Plains and of the Southwest, where the
supremacy of the shaman is rather obscured by that of the priest
conversant with a ceremony. Even within California the difference holds
good. In the Northwest, where the native civilization reached on the
whole its greatest complexity, the shaman is less prominent than
anywhere else in the state. In the south, where the culture is also
more developed than in the Central part of the state, the shaman is
certainly as much dreaded as there; but that his province is more
restricted is shown by the fact that in Southern California the shamans
in their capacity as such do not seem to form associations, perform
public ceremonies, or directly participate in the tribal dances.
The power of the shaman being directly dependent upon his personal
acquisition of a connection with the supernatural world, an
understanding of the method by which this acquisition takes place
generally furnishes also a pretty accurate idea of the nature of his
functions and influence. The most common way of acquiring shamanistic
power in California, as in so many other parts of the world, is by
dreaming. A spirit, be it that of an animal, a place, the sun or
another natural object, a deceased relative, or an entirely unimbodied
spirit, visits the future medicine-man in his dreams, and the
connection thus established between them is the source and basis of the
latter's power. This spirit becomes his guardian spirit or "personal."
From it he receives the song or rite or knowledge of the charm and the
understanding which enable him to cause or remove disease and to do and
endure what other men cannot. In California, with a few special
exceptions, the idea does not seem so prevalent as elsewhere that this
guardian spirit is an animal. Occasionally it is the ghost of a person
who has once lived, usually a relative. Perhaps most frequently it is
merely a spirit as such, not connected with any tangible embodiment or
form, either human, animate, or inanimate. The belief that the shaman
acquires the spirits most frequently in dreaming is prevalent through
the whole Sierra Nevada region and in many other parts of the state.
In certain regions another important method, that of the waking vision
and trance, is recognized. The person is in a wild desolate place,
perhaps hunting. Suddenly there is an appearance before him. He becomes
unconscious and while in this state receives his supernatural power. On
his return to his people he is for a time demented or physically
affected. After he again becomes normal he has control of his
supernatural influences. Such beliefs prevail in part among the Yuki
and Athabascans of the Coast Range and the Maidu of the Sacramento
valley, and no doubt occur more or less sporadically in other regions.
Finally, the shaman sometimes acquires his powers through seeking for
them rather than by having them thrust upon him during a dream or
vision. This of course is a common procedure in the Plains and in part
on the North Pacific Coast. Among the Yurok of the lower Klamath, for
instance, the person whom the spirits have visited in dreams, ascends
high peaks where he spends one or more nights until he has acquired his
powers. Among the Wiyot of Humboldt Bay there are similar beliefs. In
the same Northwestern region a man who wishes to be fierce, strong, and
invulnerable swims at night in lakes inhabited by monsters or thunders.
From these, if his courage is sufficient to await and endure their
presence, he receives the desired powers. This practice of bathing in
lonely lakes closely recalls the custom prevalent along the Pacific
slope for some distance northward, and within California it is probably
not strictly confined to the Northwestern culture area. On the whole,
however, this deliberate method of acquiring shamanistic power is not
common, nor, as has already been stated, would it be in accord with the
generally lower intensity of religious feeling among the California
Indians as compared with those of most other parts of the continent.
The Northwestern area is not only exceptional in being the principal
one within the state where this deliberate seeking of shamanistic power
is prevalent. The conception of a guardian spirit is much less clearly
defined among the Northwestern tribes, with whom the possession of
"pains," the small material objects which cause disease, rather than of
true spirits, seems to be what is generally associated with shamanistic
power. As already stated, shamanism forms a much less important part of
religion as a whole in the Northwestern area than elsewhere, and it is
in accord with this fact that the majority of the shamans, and those
supposed to be most powerful, are women.
In parts of Southern California also the idea of the guardian spirit
does not seem to be well developed. Here the method of acquiring
shamanistic power is almost exclusively by dreams; but among the Mohave
and probably other Colorado river tribes, myths, and not a personal
meeting or communion with an individual spirit, constitute the subject
of the dreams. The Mohave shamans believe that they were present at the
beginning of the world, before mankind had separated into tribes. They
were with the great leader and almost creator, Mastamho. They saw him
singing, blowing, and rubbing over the body of a sick man, if their own
power be that of curing disease, and from Mastamho they thus learned
the actions and speeches which constitute their power. Before him they
showed what they had learned from him, and by him were designated those
who had seen and learned most and those of less power. Each man saw
only the shamanistic actions relating to his particular power, whether
these had reference to the curing of disease, to love, to war, or to
some other activity. The Mohave universally speak of having dreamed
these scenes, just as each narrator affirms his knowledge of
non-shamanistic myths and of ceremonies to have been individually
derived from dreaming them. It is probable that to a certain extent
this is true. That it is not entirely true becomes evident when the
Mohave with equal unanimity state that these dreams were dreamed by
them before birth. In other words, their statement that they have
dreamed such experiences is to be interpreted mainly as a belief that
they as individuals were present in spirit form at the beginning of the
world, at the time when it took shape and everything was ordained, and
when all power, shamanistic and otherwise, was established and
allotted. It is obvious that with this conception as the basis of their
whole religion, there is but little room for any beliefs as to guardian
spirits of the usual form.
Of course there is nothing that limits the shaman to one spirit, and
among many or most tribes, such as the Maidu, a powerful medicine-man
may possess a great number.
Frequently in Central and Northwestern California there is some more or
less public ceremony at which a new shaman is, so to speak, initiated
before he practices his powers. The body of initiated shamans do not
form a definite society or association. The ceremony is rather an
occasion that marks the first public appearance of the novice, in which
he receives for his own good, and presumably for that of the community
also, the assistance of the more experienced persons of his profession.
Commonly it is thought that the novice cannot receive and exercise the
full use of his powers without this assistance. The ceremony is usually
held in the ceremonial chamber and is accompanied by dancing. The
efforts of the older shamans are directed toward giving the initiate a
firm and permanent control of the spirits which have only half attached
themselves to him and which are thought to be still more or less
rebellious. Of course exhibitions of magic and of the physical effects
of the presence of the spirits are a prominent feature of these
ceremonies. This initiation of doctors is found among the Northwestern
tribes and in the Central region among the Maidu and Wintun and
probably other groups.
A special class of shamans found to a greater or less extent among
probably all the Central tribes, though they are wanting both in the
Northwest and the South, are the so-called bear doctors, shamans who
have received power from grizzly bears, often by being taken into the
abode of these animals--which appear there in human form,--and who
after their return to mankind possess many of the qualities of the
grizzly bear, especially his apparent invulnerability to fatal attack.
The bear shamans can not only assume the form of bears, as they do in
order to inflict vengeance on their enemies, but it is believed that
they can be killed an indefinite number of times when in this form and
each time return to life. In some regions, as among the Pomo and Yuki,
the bear shaman was not thought as elsewhere to actually become a bear,
but to remain a man who clothed himself in the skin of a bear to his
complete disguisement, and by his malevolence, rapidity, fierceness,
and resistance to wounds to be capable of inflicting greater injury
than a true bear. Whether any bear shamans actually attempted to
disguise themselves in this way to accomplish their ends is doubtful.
It is certain that all the members of some tribes believed it to be in
their power.
The rattlesnake doctor, who cured or prevented the bite of the
rattlesnake, was usually distinct from other medicine-men. Among the
Yuki his power, as that of the rattlesnake, was associated with the
sun; among the Maidu with the thunder. Among the Yokuts the rattlesnake
shamans annually held a public ceremony designed to prevent rattlesnake
bites among the tribe. On this occasion they displayed their power over
the snakes by handling them in a manner analogous to that of the Hopi,
and by even allowing themselves to be bitten.
As everywhere else, the practice of shamanism in California centers
about disease and death. It is probably more narrowly limited to this
phase than in most other portions of North America. Being an
essentially unwarlike even though a revengeful people, it is natural
that the supernatural power personally acquired by the California
Indian should not often be directed toward success in battle. Success
in love is also less often the result of such personal power than for
instance on the Plains, perhaps because in the latter region the custom
which made virtually every young man seek shamanistic power, resulted
in a condition where those whose proclivities were not toward medicine
or war, desired and received their powers in this direction. Influence
over game and over nature's yield of vegetable products was sometimes
attributed to shamans in California, but on the whole their powers in
this respect were not very much insisted upon except in Southern
California, favorable or adverse conditions of this kind being
attributed rather to the tribal ceremonies, and in the Northwest
connected with the all-important formulae. The causing and prevention
of disease and death were therefore even more largely the predominant
functions of the person who had acquired personal supernatural power in
California than elsewhere in America.
That the medicine-men who could cure diseases were also the ones who
must cause it, unless it were the direct consequence of an infraction
of some religious observance or prohibition, was the almost universal
belief, which was probably adhered to with greater definiteness than in
most portions of North America. The killing of medicine-men was
therefore of frequent occurrence. Among some tribes, as the Yokuts, the
medicine-man who had lost several patients was held responsible for
their death by their relatives. Among the Mohave also murder seems to
have been the normal end of the medicine-man. In the Northwestern
region the shaman who failed to cure was forced to return the fee
received in advance. If he refused to attend a patient when summoned,
he was compelled to pay, in the event of the latter's death, an amount
of property equal that proffered him for his services. So completely
was the shaman regarded as the cause of disease and death, as well as
of their prevention, that one hears very little among the California
Indians of witchcraft, that is to say, of malevolent practices
performed by persons, often very old or very young people, who are not
believed to be endowed with the shaman's power of curing.
Disease, as among most primitive peoples the world over, was usually
held to be caused by small material objects which had in a supernatural
way been caused to enter the body. The determination and extraction of
these was the principal office of the medicine-man and, also as
elsewhere, was most frequently accomplished by sucking. In certain
regions, especially the South, the tubular pipe was brought into
requisition for this purpose, the disease-object being supposed to be
sucked into the doctor's mouth through it. Among such tribes the pipe
was also smoked by the medicine-man as part of his ritual. In other
cases the sucking was performed directly with the mouth, but, just as
the disease-causing object had by supernatural means entered the body
without causing or leaving an opening, so it was extracted by the
medicine-man without an incision or a trace of its passage. This object
might be a bit of hair, a stick, an insect or small reptile, a piece of
bone, deer sinew, or almost any other material. In the greater part of
northern California, including the Northwestern region, it was not an
ordinary physical object working mischief by its mere presence in the
body or by the supernatural properties with which the shaman or his
spirits had endowed it, but an object itself supernatural and called a
"pain." These pains are variously described, frequently as being sharp
at both ends and clear as ice. They possessed the power of moving even
after extracted, and were able to fly through the air to the intended
victim at the command of the person who had sent them. The medicine-man
after extracting the disease-object or pain almost always exhibited it.
It was then either destroyed by him or kept by him for his own use. In
Northwestern California he sometimes swallowed it, the degree of his
power being thought to be dependent upon the number of pains he kept in
his body, both those which he received upon his becoming a shaman, when
they were "cooked" before a great fire in the doctor-initiation dance,
and those which he subsequently secured in doctoring his patients. The
rattlesnake's bite was regarded as being dangerous on account of its
injection into the victim's body of a material animate object, which
the rattlesnake shaman must extract if death was not to ensue. Among
the Yuki this object was a small snake; among the Yokuts a rodent's
tooth or other object supposed to have formed part of the animals upon
which the snake subsisted. In some cases two classes of medicine-men
were distinguished, one diagnosing, the other treating the patient.
Among the Wiyot or Wishosk the former by dancing before the patient saw
in a vision the nature and location of the disease-object and
determined what had caused it to enter the body. Somewhat similar
though varying distinctions between shamans whose power consists of
knowledge, and those who have practical capacity as well, occurred
among other tribes. Sucking is not always resorted to. The Mohave
principally blow or spit over their patients and stroke or rub or knead
their bodies, which actions are supposed by them to drive out the
disease. Medicines and drugs are but little used, or if so, in a manner
that gives no opportunity for their physiological efficacy. Four or
five drops--the number varying according to the ceremonial number of
the tribe--of a weak decoction may be given to the patient or even only
applied to him externally. It is natural that where the magic effect of
the drug as used in a certain ritual is believed in, the quantity so
used is not an essential consideration. It is the supernatural
qualities connected with the plant that bring about the desired result,
and these are as inherent in a drop placed upon the forehead as in a
basketful taken internally. Perhaps the most-used medicinal plant
throughout the state is the angelica root, probably principally on
account of its fragrance. Tobacco is considerably employed by shamans,
but is of equal importance in other aspects of religion.